Norman Rehabilitation and Medical Center

Just before or during the birth of a baby different complications could be present, and sometimes their effects are not
visible at the time the baby is born, but such complications can result in associated conditions that will affect the functions
and daily activities of a child. Alan was born on September 8, 1992 at the Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena,
California.

The course of my pregnancy with Alan was overall normal, and full term. During labor Alan suffered fetal distress due to
his umbilical cord becoming tangled around his ankles. Therefore an emergency cesarean section was performed.
Alan was born with an apgar of 10. In general, the apgar is registered twice for a newborn. This is at one minute and five
minutes after the baby is born. Apgar is the score developed by the anesthesiologist Virginia Apgar in 1952. It was created
to evaluate the physical condition of a newborn, and also to determine the need for any immediate treatment.

By his first year of age Alan was doing most of the activities a baby his age was expected to do, except walking on his
own, and he had crawled in a different way. The pediatricians kept giving us opinions such as "Every child is different,
and even there are children who take longer to start walking. You should not worry about it." Alan has always shown to
be very intelligent. He was very verbal and already talking fluently when he turned two years old.

Actually when he was evaluated by a Pediatric Neurologist we were first very scared, but then really pleased when we
heard him saying: "Your son is not normal. Alan is very bright" This is true. Alan is currently in 10th Grade, all of his classes
are in the Honors program, a program for academically advanced students.

When our child turned fifteen months old we noticed that he
was walking holding on walls and furniture around the house
but not on hisown, therefore we took him for an
orthopedic consultation to the Children's Hospital in
Los Angeles. After an extensive evaluation and X-rays we
were informed that Alan had a subluxation on the left side
of his hip.

After this visit we were searching constantly for the
appropriate treatment for our son to help him to start
walking on his own.
We visited several specialists, and when Alan was two and a
half years old, he had his adductor muscles surgically
lengthened, this was intended for him to walk.
Alan had casts on both legs for eight weeks,and after the casts
were removed he started physical therapy. When our son
turned three years old he learned again how to walk without
any difficulty (he was even running and jumping), but his gait
was abnormal due to his pelvis moved without coordination.
At this age Alan was already speaking, reading, and writing
English and Spanish perfectly.

By June 1999 Alan was evaluated in Mexico at the "Teleton Rehabilitation Center" and in January 2000, then he
started therapy. Ever since he is evaluated every six to twelve months and continues looking forward for his
rehabilitation.

We continued searching. Alan has had many methods of treatment during the last eleven years besides the traditional
physical and occupational therapy. Just to mention some of them he has had Horse back riding therapy, Dolphin
therapy, Hydrotherapy, Osteopath, Magnet therapy, and Chiropractic. But he never had one of the most important
ones, this is Neuro Developmental Treatment. Also known as NDT-Bobath Method. It was developed by a British couple,
the Neurophysiologist Dr. Karel Bobath and his wife Bertha, a physiotherapist. They created a combined method of
evaluation, and early therapy to evaluate and monitor the normal development of a child.

In June 2005 we found the Spider, and Norman Rehabilitation and Medical Center. Of course we made an extensive
investigation as well as many questions about the program like any other parents who have been searching around of all
the possible methods of rehabilitation. After all we set up a four week therapy session for Alan, and departed to Poland
on July 30, 2005.
As soon as we arrived to Norman Center in Koszalin, Poland our experience in regards to the conventional orthopedic
evaluations was different. This time the consultation was impressive, the treatment plan that was presented was intense,
not easy, but possible. In this way Alan started a therapy program specifically tailored for him that gave him three and a
half hours of therapy during six days per week.
The therapy started strengthening the center of gravity of our body: THE PELVIS.

We can not expect that our legs or arms function symmetrically coordinated if the center of gravity is uncoordinated,
weak, or flaccid. By the third week of therapy we decided to stay four more weeks due to the efficiency of Spider, and
also because of Alan's opinion when he noticed the difference among the previous therapy programs.

Alan had such an obvious improvement in two months that was never
seen before in many years of therapy. His posture is better, his trunk is
stronger, and his pelvis is aligned, therefore his gait has improved. Alan
feels confident as well as proud of himself. While I was observing the
achievement of my son in just a short period of time I started talking
about Spider to literally everybody, our relatives, friends, patients, and
families with children with special needs. Afterwards Norman
Rehabilitation and Medical Center gave me the position of their
representative. I gladly accepted the proposal, and now we share our
experience with other families that keep looking for alternatives in the
process of the rehabilitation of their children.

We are now proudly representing Norman's Center and would like to
give our testimony and all the necessary information for children with
special needs so they can have the opportunity to give the first step in
their rehabilitation having therapy in Spider as our son did.